Cape Bretoner living in Florida ready for storm

Cape Breton native Angela La Muse and her husband, Alex DiMella, enjoy drinks on a patio before hurricane Irma caused them to evacuate their apartment in Coconut Grove, Florida.

SYDNEY, N.S. — A Cape Breton native living in Miami feels ready to face hurricane Irma because she was prepared and played it safe.

Angela La Muse, 32, originally from Ottawa Brook in Victoria County, is a burlesque dancer who moved to Coconut Grove, Miami, in 2014 to live with her husband, Alex DiMella.

She said they didn’t want to take any chances with the Category 4 hurricane Irma, so the couple left Coconut Grove almost a full day before the evacuation order was issued.

“We’re pretty close to Miami Beach and our apartment isn’t that well-built, so we just thought Miami’s supposed to be taking a direct hit — we better get out of here,” said La Muse.

To date, hurricane Irma has struck a number of Caribbean islands hard, leaving at least 21 people dead, thousands homeless and more than a million without power.

La Muse and her husband, who’s a visual artist and creative director, only took their cat and the bare essentials with them when they hit the road for McIntosh, Florida, at 4 a.m. on Thursday.

“We just took the essentials, the things that we felt we needed for our livelihood in case something bad does happen to the house,” said La Muse. “We took what we’d need to be able to continue with our careers and making money —I took my costumes and my husband took his computers.”

Although she was leaving most of her belongings behind in her apartment without a guarantee they or the apartment would be safe, La Muse said she wasn’t emotional about it.

“It was not a sad feeling for me, maybe a little bit of disappointment but it was a necessity — it’s was had to be done, it’s survival.”

Before making the trip of more than 520 kilometres to DiMella’s parents’ home in McIntosh, the couple stocked up on water and brought extra cans of gasoline with them on their trip.

On the road to McIntosh, heavy traffic in the morning added an extra hour to their trip. La Muse said although she wasn’t stressed over the situation, some people she saw were not prepared for hurricane Irma.

“It’s almost a little bit like the apocalypse is happening in Miami right now. There are people fighting over water, which I think is silly, when tap water is completely drinkable and you can bottle it,” said La Muse. “There’s people fighting over water and there’s people who are panicking — which you just shouldn’t do in this situation.”

While driving towards DiMella’s parents’ home, the couple still wanted to get gas to make sure they had enough, but almost every station was out of gas.

“Halfway there we still wanted to fuel up and it was hard to find a gas station that had fuel left and some of them had really long lines,” said La Muse.

Eventually the couple did get gas and make it to DiMella’s family home in the late afternoon on Thursday. For an added peace of mind, the home has a bomb shelter on the property, although McIntosh is not expected to experience nearly as much impact from the hurricane as some parts of Florida, such as Miami Beach.

“In McIntosh, we’re probably going to feel the effects of the hurricane but not that bad; we’re not expecting to get it really bad here,” said La Muse. “Miami is supposed to take more of a direct hit and McIntosh is way more inland and above sea level.”

Hurricane Irma has devastated the Caribbean this week and only on Friday was scaled back to a Category 4 hurricane. It was a Category 5 for more than two days, making it one of the most powerful and longest-lasting Category 5 storms on record.

Hurricane Irma is expected to be near South Florida by Saturday night or early Sunday as at least a Category 4 hurricane.